This article aims at testing the effect of institutions and growth in the MENA countries. We explain the conditional convergence in terms of initial conditions, macroeconomic performance, trade openness, government size, natural resource abundance, institutions and politics as determinant variables of growth for a sample of 90 countries over the period 1960-2000. We use regional indicators, MENA specific variables and regional specific variables in order to show their specific effect on the MENA economies growth. We focus on highlighting the mechanisms of the corruption effects on the region growth, specially the direct and indirect impacts of both corruption and bureaucratic quality on the MENA growth compared to the other regions of the world.Keywords: Conditional convergence; growth determinant; corruption; institutions; Middle East and North Africa; cross-section.